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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



SONGS FROM THE 
GRANITE HILLS 

BY 
CLARK B. COCHRANE 




BOSTON 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

MCMXVIII 



Copyright, 1918, by Clark B. Cochrane 



All Rights Reserved 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 

JUN 27 I9!8 

©Cl.A4994(i2 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Love Lives Forever : A Medley .... 7 

If? 35 

On a Picture Set in Gold 36 

The Days of Long Ago 40 

A Battle Call. 1862 46 

-Fredericksburg 48 

Noon by Lake Sunapee 50 

The Builders 52 

The Plaint of the Pessimist 54 

The Star of the Optimist 57 

The Voice of Love Divine 59 

A Tryst 62 

New England 63 

Our Angels 65 

Crosses 67 

For Don,— My Dog 68 

A Farewell to Joe English 70 

Anabel 75 

To Susie 78 

The Light Men Use 79 

A Reverie 81 

-The Sweetest Word 83 

A Plea for a Heart 84 

3 



Contents 



PAGE 

Sonnets 86 

The Tryst of the Pilot 95 

The White Ticket 97 

On the Shore 99 

A Plea for Love lOi 



SONGS FROM THE GRANITE HILLS 



LOVE LIVES FOREVER: A MEDLEY 



Prelude 



Jove and Juno, Oberon, 
From the fields of time have fled ; 
All the gods but Love are gone — 
Realmless, hopeless, listless, dead! 
When Jehovah claimed His own 
And the old gods fled away. 
Love was kindred to His throne 
And the Master bade him stay. 

Thor and Odin, Neptune, Pan — 
Not one could the test endure; 
Love, the dreamer, lives for man 
Only that his heart was pure. 
Slaves may rise at Freedom's call, 
Freemen bound as slaves may be, 
Empires wax and kingdoms fall. 
Deserts smile with blade and tree — 

Seas and rivers may dry up. 
Cities stand where now are seas. 
Still this god will dine and sup 
In their cots and palaces! 
He shall touch the hearts of men 
With the fire that burns on high. 
Which if quenched will burn again 
In the soul that cannot die. 
7 



8 Songs from the Granite Hills 



And his careful feet shall go 
Where we laugh or weep or plod, 
Till the thoughts of men shall grow 
Something like a thought of God; 
Till is set the last fair sun 
Mortal eyes shall look upon; 
Till the moon and stars have run 
Their last courses, and are gone; 

Till the heavens overhead 
Like a scroll are rolled away — 
Then shall Love indeed be dead, 
And his reign have had its day. 
No! — Beyond the stars and sun, 
On a fair and peaceful shore. 
His immortal reign begun, 
Love will live forevermore! 

Since Love first dreamed his sweet, immortal dream 

Where radiant Eve, ungarmented as dawn, 

Toyed with the tempter for the bitter fruit 

Of sweat and tears and everlasting moil, 

His lips, that press the fond heart of the rose 

With eager joy, have chanced the bitter thorn; 

And men have ever since that sorry slip 

Pursuing substance, to a shadow knelt. 

Or hopeless beauty wept its bloom away, 

Or flung its heart against a barbed scorn 

Indifferent as death. So runs the world. 

And ever some bewildered heart will grieve 

In Night's dumb ear, or to the homeless winds 

That moan about the windows and the eaves 

On stormy autumn nights, or sigh forlorn 

O'er stubble fields and through the leafless wood. 

For Summer gone with all its golden days. 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 9 

I had a friend in the bright days of youth, 

When life was joy and all the earth was fair: 

Arthur his name — a friend with whom I built 

Youth's airy castles, happy not to know 

They stood upon the shifting sands of life' 

Or that rude winds would lay them at our feet. 

Companions, playmates, all in all to each, 

We grew like foster brothers side by side. 

Our thoughts, our joys, our loves and hates alike. 

I loved him as a brother or a friend 

In youth's hot blood can love, because I knew. 

By that fine instinct with which children choose, 

And women know their friends, and dogs their foes, 

He could no more play truant to my need 

Than God could be unjust, or falsehood true. 

Alas for me, who from the barren years 

Have beaten out this truth: that friendship true, 

Firm as the hills, unswerving as a star. 

Unselfish as the ministry of love 

Where grim death revels and misfortune falls. 

Is the most precious jewel of the earth, 

The one thing likest God. And yet so rare — 

So clothed upon with Satan's livery — 

So covered and concealed in earthly grime. 

Men seek it as the Pilgrims sought the Grail 

And go to find it on the shore of Night. 

Friendship that waits on fortune's gilded smile 

And flatters thrift, but far from misery flies. 

Is not the white-winged child of Paradise 

With balm of healing in his finger tips. 

But just a bastard bantling of the world. 

With baser thoughts to baser uses born. 



lO Songs from the Granite Hills 

O, rare true natures! they could not be false; 
False natures cannot, if they will, be true. 

We played together by the wide elm tree, 

Or chased along green fields and running streams 

Not shadows, but true joys. O then, we thought 

Our little circle was the happy world. 

The blithesome, happy world that knew not grief. 

The noisy squirrels and the birds unscared 

Were our companions in that blissful time, 

And our domain, by the same fee, was theirs, 

For Nature is a mother, and she gives 

To tree and flower and every living thing 

The foison of her breast in equal share, 

And in her soft caress there is no pain 

Nor any touch of sorrow in her face. 

We read together from the same worn book 

The old familiar tales that never die. 

And Daniel cowed the lions yet again. 

And Joseph ruled fair Egypt and the Nile; 

And, ever when the happy day was done, 

We said, as to a Father that we knew, 

"Thy name be hallowed and Thy kingdom come." 

Immortal voice from love-crowned Olivet, 
Out of the wilderness of woe and death. 
The soul's strong plea — a cry without a creed. 
And most acceptable to Him who made 
The tenderness of its divine appeal, 
When, by far Galilee, He talked with men. 
And told them of Himself, and how this prayer, 
In all the ages to the end of time, 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley II 

Should voice their needs and reach the ear of God. 

And so it rises when the morning breaks 

In sunrise, leaping from the crystal hills, 

And when the shadows of the night draw near 

The Angelus is sounded, and we pray! 

From brilliant lips that wear the bloom of yoiith, 

From lips that glow with manhood's lusty strength, 

From pale, thin lips that falter and grow dumb, 

From dying lips that speak no more to earth, 

It riseth like the smoke of sacrifice, 

Moving to pity the great heart of Christ! 

So fared we on with youth's slow-pacing years. 
While childhood's supple limbs grew strong and 

lithe, 
And all our thoughts grew wider, as the rills 
Grow broader, deeper toward the larger stream. 
The woods were our first love ; and there we heard 
The brook's low speech, the voices of the winds. 
We climbed the mountain at the day's decline, 
And from beneath the gnarled and dying oak, 
Where oft the Indian maiden plighted love 
With some tall son of nature, pure and free. 
We watched the sun, slow sinking in the west 
As ships upon the ocean disappear, 

Gathering afar his robes of shadowy flame 
That trail forever round the rolling world, 
Fringing the garments of the night with gold. 
Anon the blind owl from his hemlock tree. 
Disconsolate, began to hail his mate 
Far in the dark still wood ; and quickly mocked 
By his insulting echo — "Whoo, Whoo-o-o — " 
Gloomy and dismal, shouted louder still 



12 Songs from the Granite Hills 

With weird, untuneful voice — "tuwhoo, tuwhoo!" 
So on we fared to manhood's opening years, 
Where faith and hope stand, eager, hand in hand, 
Upon the threshold of a larger world. 

He loved a maiden of the fair green wood, 
A father's pride, a princess of the fields, — 
Like some tall wildflower, by a stream, she grew. 
Untaught by art, to unrestricted grace; 
The winds of summer tangled her dark hair 
In riotous beauty round her happy face; 
The ardent sun had kissed her unabashed 
To beauty's hue, and thenceforth stood at gaze. 

And thus she grew to perfect maidenhood 

As fair as any that in olden days 

Have worn with honor as a priceless gem 

The perfect name which is itself a prayer. 

As Jephtha's daughter, the pure Gileadite, 

From Mizpeh's gate, with vine wreath and with 

song, 
She might have gone to sacrifice and fame, 
Or posed, as Innocence, for Raphael 
And thus adorned the cottage and the hall, 
Beloved forever and forever fair. 

Ave Mary! O, sweetest, dearest name 

That ever trembled on a human tongue! 

Ave Mary! with the Babe immortal '. 

Close folded in the cradle of thy breast, 

In Joseph's tent beneath Judaea's palms! 

Ave Mary! through ages dark and long, 

In marble orisons lifting thy calm eyes. 

Of still compassion, and in pictured prayer, 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 13 

Pleading forever for the souls of men, 
Wretched, unfortunate, despairing, lost 
In the wide wilderness of sin or shame! 
Small marvel, then, the loveliest of earth, 
The pure and beautiful are called for thee, 
O Mother of the Morning Star of men ! 

At first she loved him, and she loved him not, 
A little fitful, like an April day, — 
Cloud, sunshine, tears, a crocus, and then spring; 
But as a tender plant, by slow degrees, 
Grows vigorous in the luscious airs of June, 
So grew her love, until a maiden kiss. 
That speaks a language that was never writ. 
Betrayed her heart. Then where his footstep 
strayed 

In twilight soft she lingered; and at times, 

She twined her loving arms about his neck, 

And heard the story Adam told to Eve 

Beneath the singing stars; — the same fond tale. 

Old as the hills, yet like a sunrise new, 

That, by the Northern pine and Southern palm, 

Retold forever, makes the old world young. 

And sometimes they were silent and made love 

Hotter than speech; for heart aches oft have hung 

Upon the modest drooping of a lash; 

And lovers have a language all their own 

Of covert glances stealing from the eye, 

And little speeches haply big with fate; 

And the soft touch of a white hand can make 

The heart strings vibrate like a smitten harp. 

Breathing in tune to some delightful thought! 



14 Songs from the Granite Hills 

Thus, he was happy, as the days sped on, 

And drunk with joy! Joy filled his brimming cup, 

As rivers fill their channels to the brink 

When fed by generous rains. So he must needs 

To some dear friend reveal the ostrich head 

Which lay concealed by one lone, trembling leaf 

Of slightest circumspection. So one night, 

As we were strolling in familiar paths, 

He told a secret all beforehand knew. 

And ended thus— "You are my dearest friend, 
Therefore, congratulation, sj^mpathy, 
I crave from you, for I have told you all 
The vital circumstance that makes or mars 
My happiness in this world, and the world 
That lies beyond our vision, into which 
We sometimes long, and always dread to go. 

And nature seems to have a thousand tongues, 

And every tongue is lisping to my soul. 

O love is sweet, how sweet, how sweet is love! 

Now every red rose seems to blush like her, 

The white rose whispers of her purity. 

In each familiar tree there is a voice 

That sayeth ever, *0 how fair she is, 

How good, how true, how like a saint she is!' 

O she is like a vision beautiful, 

A rose unfingered in the flush of morn; 

Joy dances in the dark sheen of her eyes 

As sunshine shimmers in a shining gem, 

A bird-song bubbling from her happy breast 

Goes trilling to the wild. Where'er she waits 

By grove or stream, or where her footsteps fall. 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 15 

There is a hallowed spirit in the air 
That, like a hidden magnet, draws my feet 

To love's enchanted realm. O then I feel 

That loveliness and beauty fill the earth 

As peace fills Heaven. Life broadens like the sea — 

I stand upon the summit of the world — 

The glorious hills are mine ! Straightway I see 

The panorama of the years to come 

Unroll before me like a pictured dream 

Wherein her face is standing like a star; 

And ever through the changes of that dream 

I hear the ripple of her laughter run 

In liquid music melting to a close. 

O not for passion do I love this flower 

Unfolding like a lily to the dawn, 

But for the white soul hidden in its heart — 

The sweet intoxication of its balm 

That fills my spirit like a breath from Heaven, 

With spiritual fragrance that abides 

To-day, to-morrow and forevermore. 

You think I over-praise this simple maid. 
That ardent love is playing loose with sense; 
But who can praise the unplucked rose aright 
Or, with the ragged poverty of speech. 
Paint nature and not mar it? Ah, not one." 
"And love — I know not what it is," I said. 
Thinking to throw a quibble in his face 
To cool his ardor: "your blood is all a-flame, — 
Some leman you have lipped whose witchcraft 

strange 
Or magic spell hath bound you with a curl. 



1 6 Songs from the Granite Hills 

If I should prick your finger it would bleed 
The toxic ichor tipping Cupid's shaft. 

But tell me, O my brother, if you can — 

You who have felt it, know it, feel it still. 

What is this love you rant of in your sleep, 

This fitful fever flushing your fair face 

That like a ruling spirit makes you daft. 

And leads you, willy nilly, where it will 

And stirs your blood like wine? Whence comes its 

power ? 
What is its essence? Is it then so pure 
That men die for it as the martyrs died 
For pure religion? Tell me if you can." 

"O love is love, nor more nor less," said he, 
"A longing satisfied, a gift of God, 
That like eternal life, we take on trust 
And pray for till we have it. Love, like life. 
Is pain and pleasure mixed, a mystery 
No human mind can analyze or solve, 
Though it were Bacon added unto Locke, 
Or, for a moment, hold its essence in 
The crude alembic of philosophy." 

"Your definition's good," I said — "go on." 

"Last night we looked upon the lover's moon, 
Which sailed the heavens like a splendid ship 
With golden banners set. Fair as a dream. 
The blue sky hung above us, and the stars. 
In rank on rank assembled. At our feet 
The winding river rippled on, and made 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 17 

The same monotonous music, sweet and low, 

That soothed the children of primeval woods. 

And she, who sat beside me in the joy 

Of innocence, was only half of earth ; 

She seemed a being of another world, 

The fair impersonation of my dreams 

Of love on happier shores. And while we talked 

Of love and life and all they meant to us, 

I thought myself a King upon a throne 

Worth all the thrones in all the lists of time! 

My ship was sailing upon golden seas; 

Fair winds had kissed her to the harbor's mouth; 

I saw Leander, toiling to his tryst. 

Go down to cruel death, and Hero stretch 

Her wild arms unavailing to the sea, 

Empty of love as autumn's withered husk! 

I saw, ere Pompey's eagles, red with blood. 

Swooped on the gilded barges of the Nile, 

The lofty Roman and the dusky Queen 

Giving the empire of the world for love. 

One long embrace, the sword, the aspic, sleep — 

And pitied them, it was so brief, so brief! 

And with life all before me in long dream, 

I envied not Adonis that he won 

Celestial beauty to an earthly couch. 

Or him who folded Psyche to his heart. 

The peerless god with his immortal bride. 

The stars were throbbing in far spaces blue, 

A glittering host aloft the summer night; 

And while we gazed in silent wonderment 

They seemed to recognize the love of earth, 

And answer it with their immortal love. 

Until the music of the far-off spheres 

From Heaven descending, thrilled our human hearts. 



1 8 Songs from the Granite Hills 

If some fair angel, dropping from the skies, 

Like Hebe fronted, voiced like Israfel — 

Celestial radiance lingering on her wings — 

Had spoken to me then of bliss beyond 

Life's flying shadows and illusive dreams 

I would have kissed my own, still answering 

Her soft, dark, deep love-gleaming eyes, that looked 

The soul's unutterable thought, and bid 

The angel of eternal years depart. 

And leave me with the angel of a day!" 

The man who would not barter half a year 
Of drowsy months and uneventful days 
For the delirious rapture of an hour. 
In which the fettered and surrounded soul, 
Dreaming of wings and the etherial space 
Feels not its prison bars, its bonds of clay, — 
Passes unheeded wealth of precious pearls. 
And reckons iron better than fine gold 
Because he gets more of it for his pains. 
Ascetic as the Pilgrim, salt with zeal 
And stubborned in the tangles of a creed, 
Hugging his watchfire in the wilderness 
When chill December toned the biting blast, 
He chews the husk and lets the kernel go. 
Life never pours its rich red wine for him 
In bubbling beakers held in Joy's white hand. 
Whose eyes are fixed upon the far cold heights 
Where desolation and the dead abide. 
The while his dumb feet tread its roses down! 
But blame him not. If each soul has its fate 
Foreknown, predestined, ere the Morning Stars 
Burst the great silence with majestic song, 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 19 

It travels, like a blinded ox, the way 

It cannot choose but travel to the end. 

He may be wise, if wisdom is of man ; 

He may be wise, if it indeed be true. 

This rugged creed for which the martyrs died 

In smoke and flame — and, when this life for him 

Is ended, and immortal life begun, 

Reap sheaves of bliss upon some other star, 

With no regrets for this. 

Then what avails 
Industrious prayer or any noble life. 
If men are doomed beforehand, one to bliss. 
And one, an outcast, like a shackled slave. 
Led to the hopeless gate blind, helpless, dumb? 

O what a Pilgrim's burden are the creeds 

That barnacle the soul-ship ere it sails 

Into etherial seas, and drape its flag 

With the long weeds of woe ! O men may cry, 

"Sheep to the shambles !" But Christ calls the lambs 

And beckons all the sheep — His living voice, 

God's love immortal and the Golden Rule! 

O blind and beggared are the little creeds 

So many, and so many so unlike, 

For which men die, and Angels weep. 

One honest prayer, to Him who calmly knows 

That which He builded from Eternity, 

Outweighs them all, though writ in martyr's blood, 

And blazoned on the long, long roll of time! 

O, he was happy, as one who forgets. 
In mad pursuit, the stern caprice of fate. 
Or how men strive for what they covet most, 
And find this mocker ever stand between 



20 Songs from the Granite Hills 

The prize and the pursuer, till at last 
Endeavor ends with silence and the grave. 
So he was happy. But as time went on, 
I saw a shadow lengthen on his face 
And grow a cloud. He seemed like one condemned 
To wear a hateful burden, night and day. 
As convicts wear the chain that gnaws the flesh. 
A hungry trouble, hanging on his face, 
Marring its lines of beauty, smote him sore 
As though December's storm of frozen rain 
Should sudden blight the fields of sunny June 
And lay their roses waste. He walked apart 
Like one in dream. He saw the one he loved 
With airy laughter go her simple ways. 
With now a word and reminiscent smile, 
And now regardless as a marble queen. 
Face-fixed in chiselled scorn, but heeded not; 
Suns rose and set, and still he heeded not; 
Morn came and went, and she relented not, 
Till pain grew so oppressive at his heart 
That it must speak or break! So sadly then, 
He came to me in tears, with halting speech. 
And told me all — how fallen were his gods. 
How devils, — with false friendship for disguise. 
And wearing saintly faces like a mask, — 
Who peddle slander, sandwiched with advice. 
And pious admonitions of old saws 
With sweet religion for a garniture, 
With secret poison touched her artless mind 
And slew love with suspicion. How one said, 
"He was a smiling villain in a cloak," 
And one, "he was a rake unworthy her," 
And one, "he was a mocker of the creed 
Their fathers, on old Scotland's bloody fields. 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 21 

Upheld with valiant arms." How pondering long 

The tangled tattle that the sinuous crew 

Mixed for her brain to wile her heart away, 

The small delinquencies of youth let loose, 

And measured them by what the harpies said. 

Till in imagination they assumed 

The magnitude of crime. How seeds once sown 

In wantonness of his unbridled youth, 

Would spring up tares to choke the flower of love 

And vex her later years. How then she thought 

She had done wrong in love's unreasoning 

To let its burning passion override 

Wisdom, advice, deliberation, friends, — 

That he, who once had led her willing feet 

Where heart's-ease grew and pulled its blooms for 

her 
Might be a base deceiver, after all, 
Whose touch was villainy, whose kiss would stain 
The whiteness of her soul, and then renounce 
The love that once, above all else, she prized. 
How, at a trysting place where he and she 
Had often talked of love and all it meant, 
In trance or revery, he sought to calm 
His brain bewildered, and subdue his grief, 
And Sleep, the charmer, touched, as soothe as Death, 
With opiate finger his unquiet lips. 
And he forgot he was a living soul. 
But seemed a dreamer in a land of dreams 
Where no wind stirred, nor any sound was made, 
But Silence, with hush finger on her lips. 
And light feet shod with wool, stole softly on — 
Counting the sleepers. And then one he knew, 
A daughter of the breezes and the sun. 
Stole to his side and passed into his dream. 



22 Songs from the Granite Hills 

Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes 

And trembled on their lashes: — stooping low, 

She held the lamp of Psyche to his face 

She once had kissed, and would have kissed again; 

Her white hand trembled, but she dropped no oil, 

Ere Silence came and beckoned her away. 

And Nature woke him at her own sweet will. 

And all his vision fled into the dark. 

O, if there is a little homeless soul, 

Debarred by Heaven and disowned by Hell, 

It is the wretch who peddles harmful lies 

And magnifies small faults to injury! 

Sooner than take such by the hand, and say, 
"My friend, good morrow, and God bless your 

soul," 
I would affiliate with petty thieves. 
Malicious murderers, — assassins hired 
To stab to death a good man in the dark, — 
And own the fiend who plies the midnight torch 
As very special brother to my soul ! 

Thou intermeddler, — transmigrant of Hell, 

Or resurrected relict of the wretch 

That taunted Jesus on his way to death. 

Unhappy and undying as that Jew ! 

Thou accident of Belial and a witch 

In some lewd revel of his lecherous crew. 

Thou art a being of no human birth 

Else God, repenting that He called man good 

Had linked old Adam with the crafty snake. 

And with a curse redoubled, bid him crawl 

Forever on his belly in the dust! 

For the poor wretch who steals the widow's mite 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 23 

On some fair pretext of a pious soul, 
And feeds and fattens on the orphans' share, 
While weary, weeping, jeered at, unconsoled, 
They go a-begging in the streets for bread, 
We may have some poor pity — but for thee, 
The soul of honor cries — alas, in vain — 
"Thou leper, get thee gone!" 



O, she was changed : 
She had no smile for him, and all the world 
Grew blank as oecan waste. No star in heaven, 
No voice of bird or flower or stream or tree 
Could comfort him who once had loved them all. 
Hope paled and flickered as a light burns low, 
Then flashes up a moment ere it dies. 



Even then he could not see the sober truth, 
As others saw it in the noonday sun. 
But went about, and carried in his hand 
The confident devotion of a soul. 
And loved this hesitating angel still 
With all he was, and all he hoped to be 
In this world or the world which is to come. 
And met for truth as constant as a star — 
For neither falsehood or a thought of guile 
Had lodgment in the chambers of his soul — 
A faith that faltered and, betimes, grew cold 
With blight of hesitation and a doubt. 
The love that hesitates cannot be true. 
Nor that the poets ever painted blind 
Because it saw no faults, but stood unswerved, 
Faithful amidst the shocks of war and death. 



24 Songs from the Granite Hills 

God bless the woman who is constant, true, 

Steadfast, one-thoughted, unsuspicious, kind; 

One who could see a little good in me. 

And hold fast by it to the bitter end ! 

One who would never take my frailties up 

And hold them gingerly 'twixt dark and light. 

And say, "Behold them!" with a scornful look. 

One — if an angel came to her and breathed 

The small insinuation of a hint, 

Or laid a mild suspicion at my door, 

With angered front, would smite him on the face! 

He sought forgetfulness, but all in vain. 
One face was ever present in his sleep; 
He dreamt that in a cot of smiling peace. 
With blest contentment as their lifelong guest, 
They dwelt together 'mid their native hills, 
And let the current of their lives flow on 
Unvexed by trouble to the sunset sea 
That drinks all life; — two fountains, but one 
stream. 

And then a spirit, rising from the shades 

Of Lucifer's dominions, bleak and drear, 

Spread over him its wings of spectral gloom, 

And shouted in his ear till he awoke 

That shibboleth of Hell,— "NEVER, FOR 

EVER!" 
These words were sadder than the voice of Death 
Which calls a mother from a new-born babe. 
Blasting two lives at once; and yet he dreamed, 
And they could never banish that bright dream 
From labyrinths of sleep's disordered realm; 
And when he woke he wished it always night, 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 2$ 

That he might sleep forever — sleep and dream! 

For one he loved stood ever in that sleep, 

Dividing it from the still sleep of death. 

He loved that dream ; and once he vv^rote upon 

The fly-leaf of a book w^hich she had loved, 

And sanctified by her perusal oft. 

The sum and substance of it. Here it is: — 

"O, come with me, dear soul. 

Thou breathing dream, thou vision of delight; 
O, w^alk with me, while Sleep, with stinted dole 

Deals out the calm, still night! 

"O, let me fondly press 

Thy gentle presence to my heart grown cold, 
And hold thy hand in one long, long caress, 

As in the days of old. 

"For when the rising sun 

Shall bid the sleeping world in light rejoice, 
My sands of happiness will all be run — 

I shall not hear thy voice! 

"For some cold Fate hath led 

Thy feet from paths which I must walk alone; 
And I must think of thee as of the dead 

Whom I may call my own. 

"But I will higher prize 

Thy love, that but a memory can be, 
Than gold, or fame, or life — thy pure calm eyes 

Will ever look on me." 



26 Songs from the Granite Hills 

Ah, vain is crying for a poor lost love 
As mourning for the dead to call them back, — 
For if love lives it lives forevermore, — 
There is no resurrection if it dies. 

And when he saw her daily pass him by. 

With cold, calm eyes and half averted face. 

Indifferent as the winds to his despair, 

His brain grew blank with misery: and for days 

Aching upon the verge of madness hung 

Resisting brave; so an encumbered soul, 

With horror, at the perilous brink of Hell 

Halts with a shuddering cry! And even so 

A wounded bird that, fainting, flutters on 

The edge of some dark precipice, and hears 

The hollow-sounding chasm, and the floods 

Enraged, that fret and dash and foam below. 

All weak, and torn and helpless, barely clings 

Upon the sickly shrubbery, and saves 

The little life that throbs within its breast! 

His soul drank in the bitterness and gall 
Of twenty j^ears, congealed into one draught 
Of most accursed rue! As the maniac. 
Who, shivering with passion and despair. 
Gnaws at the flesh of his own arm, and drinks 
The luscious drops of blood with hellish joy. 
Then at fantastic and pursuing shapes 
Which come and go at his capricious will 
He stares, and flies, then turns and stares again. 
With speechless eyes and foam-beslavered mouth, 
His heart, forsaken, preyed upon itself! 
O then, with strangest sense of coming ill, 
He felt the fountains of his life dry up, 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 27 

As by a drouth, when still the Dog Star climbs 

The heavens with the glaring August sun, 

To rain malaria on the groaning earth, 

The waters in the meadows are dried up, 

And Nature, for a thousand weary miles, 

Lifts all her pinched and shriveled blades to God, 

And piteously in silence prays for rain! 



How weary are the toilsome days, 
The nights to us how lone and drear, 

How little do we find for praise 

'Mid all the things smiling round us here, 

When those we love, as twilight loves a star. 

Are gone forever, or divided far! 

Then let this halting song be sad, 

As well befits so sad a theme; 
If I should make its music glad 

I must retrace life's troubled stream. 
And stand again where youth and hope await 
The laggard years, the bright decrees of fate. 

Then I could touch a happier string. 
And all its notes would joyful be; 

I should not know the truth I sing. 
That life is mostly vanity! 

O sunny skies, alas! O sparkling streams! 

O glowing hopes of youth! O golden dreams! 



Time after time Morn, from the rosy East, 
Stepped glowing, in the presence of the sun 
Scattering her shining pearls, but not for hirn ; 
Night after night from secret cavern stole. 
And darkened on the shoulders of the world, 



28 Songs from the Granite Hills 

But brought to him no rest, but only sleep 

By fitful dreams and mocking ghosts disturbed, 

Day after day, he heard her footstep light, 

The music of her voice about him still, 

The ripple of her laughter, low and sweet, 

That mocked him with a vision of old days, 

The resurrected dream of yester year 

That should be dead forever ! In the world 

Not one, he thought, was leal, nor yet in Heaven; 

That even friendship was a breathing lie 

Which led men captive ever, and betrayed! 

Then the old Adam, lingering in his heart, — 
That lingers yet in every human heart, — 
Grew huge in its proportions, and essayed 
To talk to him of vengeance! Every nerve 
Was like a hissing serpent's forked tongue 
That darts defiance from a spiteful coil! 
Anon, he took his pen, which long had been 
To him an instrument of pleasant toil. 
And wrote the thoughts that crowded on his brain, 
Demanding utterance, and gave to her 
The messages he never could recall — 
The useless words, which like the sower's seed 
Fell on the rock and stubble, and were lost! 
Who would not fain recall some idle word. 
Some bitter word that stung a faithful heart. 
Or widened more the breach of broken faith 
Which else had healed? Alas, it cannot be, 
Not God Himself could call such truant home. 

Sometimes he touched on a familiar chord 
And wrote love stanzas; yet he could not help 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 29 

But every strain should breathe of love forsvrorn. 

She took them with the calm indifference 

Of level-fronting eyes. With impish hate, 

A lurking sneer stood in their orbs and mocked, 

And w^hen his back was turned, and he was gone, 

She came and handed them to me, and said. 

With just a little devil in her eye 

And scornful laugh, ''See what this madman 

writes!" 
I took the paper from her hand and read: — 



Light of my soul, where'er your footstep goes, 
There is a lure I cannot help but follow, 
Not as a spoiler who would waste the rose 
And leave it desolate in lonely hollow. 
But rather as one smitten sore might seek 
The healing Christ to touch his garment fine, 
Whereby the pain that made his spirit weak 
Might vanish at the glance of Love Divine. 



II 



O then, somewhere beneath the watchful stars 
Bide, as of old, a happy tryst for me. 
Your voice a tremble with the liquid bars 
Of some sweet strain of love's dear minstrelsy; 
That spot were holy as with incense strown. 
For every trysting where true lovers meet 
Is a new Eden where God walks alone 
And calls an angel down to guide their feet. 



30 Songs from the Granite Hills 



III 



In vain! In vain! Your fond caress Is one 
With Eve's endearments in oblivion cold, — 
One with the rose that blushed in Babylon, 
The rose you gave me scattered to the mould ; 
Then sing no more, dear robin, sing no more,- 
And veery, let your vesper song be still, — 
O bittern booming on the marshy shore! 
O raven croaking on the dismal hill! 



IV 



For, since I heard the passion of your voice. 

My spirit ear is closed to meaner songs. 

And w^ould not hear another tongue rejoice 

In the high music that to love belongs. 

But keeps that voice, soul-shrined, albeit dumb, 

As Peter kept the call on Galilee 

That made him, in the strenuous years to come, 

Fisher of men upon an alien sea. 



And from the awe-struck spaces, cold and far. 
The brooding night fore-gathers silently; 
In the gray Heavens I see Love's steadfast star 
Yearn earthward like a God, but not to me; 
The past is a remembrance and a dream 
Of burning kisses and a long caress, — 
Ah, let me drink at Lethe's drowsy stream 
The balm of sleep and deep forgetfulness. 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 31 

And where her footstep fled, he followed on 
Regardless, as one, lost in a wide wood. 
Follows the ignis fatuus to his doom. 
And once she turned, and looked him in the face 
In hateful silence, bitterer than speech! 
Her dark hair, falling in luxuriant waves 
Upon her neck, like burnished ebon burned 
And made her beauty glow! Her narrowed eyes 
Shot naked fire that burrowed in his soul! 
Scorn gathered at the corners of her mouth, 
And on her brow defiance sat superb! 
Imperiously she stamped her little foot. 
As though it stood upon a kingdom's neck. 
Then, rising to the height of Nilus' queen. 
She smote him into silence with swift speech, 
As virgin Dian struck the wildered stag 
Entranced to death with beauty and a barb. 

'Arthur, I hate you! hate you! stupid fool!' 

And then the very atmosphere he breathed, 

Where soft the purple twilight of the stars 

Fell on the glorious beauty of her face 

Transfigured in fine anger half divine 

Grew sudden like the atmosphere of Hell 

Stifling a lost soul! Then suddenly 

He started from his painful reverie, 

And still he saw her anger flashing eyes, 

Black as a raven on the sunlit snows. 

And unrelenting as the sword of fate 

Where shouts of battle ring. And still they 

seemed 
To him like stars in his one dream of Heaven 
With light that drew his feet, and then he cast 
His fatal horoscope of life from them! 



32 Songs from the Granite Hills 

And moved by some strange impulse then, he did 

The deeds he would not do for length of days, 

Or trumpet breath of fame, forever blovs^n, 

Or all the hoarded gems of hoary time, 

And thought to force a flame that could not burn 

By stirring its cold ashes. Ah, as soon 

Call back the breath of life to that still form 

Where Death's grim seal is set, and ask its lips, 

Pale, silent, dumb, to speak of love again! 

The fairest flow^er that ever bloomed on earth, 
Whose smell and touch are life's amenities, — 
The flower that blossoms over mutual hearts, 
And sends its roots down to their lowest depths 
And draws its double nourishment from both, — 
Had withered; and no mortal power could lift 
Its drooping petal up, its life restore! 
And when his halting reason had returned, 
And sat again supreme upon its throne. 
He saw it all, — and turned his steps away, 
Chastened and sad, but with a great resolve 
To stand henceforth in Truth's dim battle line, 
And fight, for her, the conflict to the end! 
'Farewell, farewell!' He took me by the hand. 
And could have wept, had tears availed him then; 

He gazed upon his stern old sire, and saw 
The lines of sadness on his aged face. 
And prayed a blessing on his silver hair; 
He kissed the patient mother, who had borne 
Him in her arms, and soothed his infant cry — 
He saw the great love standing in her eyes, 
Her face, a benediction and a prayer. 
Yearning above him with a long farewell, 



Love Lives Forever: A Medley 33 

Then crossed the threshold that shall nevermore 
Sound with his coming feet, and to the whirl 
Of towns and cities bent his weary way, 
Bearing his burden with him. 

Evermore, 
Strange faces were about him, and new scenes 
Rose on his vision dim. But still unrest 
Was his familiar. In the past he roamed 
With lofty souls in labyrinths of song 
And heard their wondrous music, sounding still; 
With Wordsworth, living his deep-thoughted 

dream. 
And Milton blind, whose inward vision saw 
Creation's dawn and Judgment's dread eclipse; 
With Byron brave, and him whose pregnant brain 
Forestalled the poets of all coming time, 
And Keats, the dreamer, dying while he sang 
A swan song of Endymion and the gods. 
The sweetest voice that ever England heard. 
Of future years that were his friends, he dreamed, — 
He bid them welcome and a glad farewell, 
And for each wrinkle, written on his brow, 
In token of their presence as they passed, 
They soothed an aching sorrow in his soul 
And laid its ghost forever. Then to him 
The bitterness of unshed tears became 
A fragrance and a memory, and he grew 
Like one content; yet, sometimes to his brain 
The old thoughts would return ; old faces come, 
Like guests unbidden where no feast is made, 
Expectant hunger staring in their eyes; 
And then, perchance, a tear would dim his own 
At thoughts of other days; and then a voice. 
That once in music trembled on his ear, 



34 Songs from the Granite Hills 

Would, like a spirit, steal into his soul 
And stir his inmost being. Then to me 
He oft would send a greeting, and anon, 
A transcript from the pages of his life, 
The thoughts that came unbidden as a dream, 
His revery in the far and alien land. 
Here are the messages he sent to me. 



IF? 

When time for us Is done, 
If we should meet, upon some far-off shore, 

Beyond the stars and sun, 
Should we recall the days that are no more, 

Their fitful courses run? 

If it indeed were Heaven, 
With all the bliss by priest or saint foretold, 

A largess to us given, 
I could recall an hour, a thousand-fold 

O'ermatching this one even: 

When, by thy window-tree. 
We plighted faith forever to be true, 

And you, love, smiled on me. 
While, from a dwarf, my soul to thine upgrew 

And filled itself of thee! 

Or if, in Hell below. 
The fiery waves of utmost wrath should roll 

In one wide overthrow, 
I could recall, to ease my burning soul, 

An hour of bitterer woe: 

When love that summer morn 
You said would be your star forevermore, 

Lay in the dust forlorn, 
A Sodom apple, bitten to the core, 

A thing for jest and scorn. 
35 



ON A PICTURE SET IN GOLD 

still imprisoned face, that crossed 
My path when I could well rejoice 

In love's bright dream, I know the voice 
That made thee sweet, to me, is lost! 

For those who live we grieve the most — 
Not dead, but lost! O saddest word 
Lips ever uttered, or ear heard; — 

The living only are the lost. 

At least, we of our dead are sure, 

We know the last words that they spoke. 
We know the living light that broke 

Upon their faces death made pure! 

These change not with the changing years 
However we may change or fail. 
But stand in memory's guarded pale 

As fixed as the eternal spheres. 

1 know not where her pleasures be; 
What home is gladdened by her smile; 
What music soft she hears, the while 

I hear the music of the sea. 

I am a wanderer now; I stand 
Upon the deck and woo the gale; 
Loud winds are groaning in the sail 

That bears me to a distant land. 

And when beneath the toiling sea 
The burning sun goes down to rest, 
I dream of her, that she is blest, — 

Ah, does she ever dream of me? 
36 



On a Picture Set in Gold 37 

I pray not if it should recall 

One foolish word or sung or said, 

One deed that should be with the dead 

Where blind oblivion covers all. 

And this is all my hand may keep 

Of one, the breathing soul of grace, 

A light, that having kissed her face, 
Lies in this golden cell asleep. 

But it recalls the happy days 

To which our years like streams were set, 
When love and honor hailed and met. 

Along the pleasant woodland ways. 

Then we were careless of the past. 
But builded, by delightful streams. 
Our castle in the land of dreams. 

Where peace should dwell and love should last. 

We watched the dark night's sullen face 

Grow smiling with a splendid star, 

While Venus, from the mists afar. 
Rose queenly to her lofty place. 

We ^2Lw the lover's moon outswing 

Above the blue Joe English Hill; 

While every voice of breeze and rill 
Seemed in our very hearts to sing. 

She then was Nature's worshipper; 

She loved each budding shrub and tree; 

She showed her fairest flowers to me. 
But then, I only looked at her! 



38 Songs from the Granite Hills 

I said, — "Behold the moon on high, 
She seems to smile on love's emprise;" 
And she, with passion in her eyes, 

"Love is so sweet it cannot die!" 

"This is the lover's moon," she said, 
"See! Like a queen she walks the sky! 
She speaks of love that cannot die 

In us, whatever else be dead." 

Love, then we thought no fate could kill, 
Nor age abate its ardent breath ; 
That Love was lord of life, and Death 

But made his kingdom wider still! 

But I have learned that hearts can be 
All fair without but false within. 
And beauty's gilding hide the sin 

Of lips forsworn to constancy. 

And knowledge widens. Oft since then 
I've seen men fondly, wisely trust 
An Eden-flower of frailty, dust, — 

Also the sinuous ways of men. 

Likewise that other hands will press 
To eager lips the fruit of gold, 
That tasted, turns to ashes cold 

And leaves a lingering bitterness. 

For, by the certain law of God, 
We feel no pain, however sore. 
But men have felt its pangs before, — 

The wine-press not alone is trod. 



On a Picture Set in Gold 39 

And this is Nature's kindest plan, 

That every sorrow there can be, 

And every joy, — one is for thee, 
And one is for thy brother man. 

Hail, and farewell: my plaint is done; 

My soul shall be content to smart, I 

If I may kindle in my heart : 

Courage to suffer and pass on. ] 

For, somewhere on these human shores i- 

Where beat the ceaseless waves of time. 
Where men are covered with the grime 

Of ancient sins and modern sores, — ■■: 

Aye, somewhere I shall find expressed, '"': 

In language that my soul can read, ,' 
Kind Nature's promise, guaranteed. 

Of peace in some fair land of rest. : 



THE DAYS OF LONG AGO 

O, Time, upon whose viewless wing 
The fleeting seasons haste away, 

Instruct my truant Muse to sing, 
A better land, a brighter day. 

The present may, perchance, beguile 
My soul, with sorrow overcast. 

And lure me from a love-lit smile 
Beleaguered in the dim-walled past. 

But I would gladly now resign 
All that the future has for me. 

For one brief hour of sweet lang syne, 
One kiss beneath our trysting tree. 

But that, alas, can never be, 

The maid, and eke the tree is gone; 
And unrelenting Destiny, 

With fateful finger, beckons on. 

On to the shadows dim, unknown. 
The silence of unsounded seas, 

Where never notes of love are blown. 
Nor ever heard the homeland breeze. 

And now, the shadows, pale and dim, 
Before my mortal vision rise; 

The years, like banished seraphim, 
Are marching by me in disguise. 
40 



The Days of Long Ago 41 

The past is past. What boots ft now, 

Since time cannot reverse its flight, 
And Fate's cold hand is on my brow. 

To cry in the dead ear of Night — 

'O Night, revive my hopeless dead. 

And stir love's ashes into flame?' 
Can Night unsay a word that's said. 

And written as God writes His Name? 

Yet sometimes in these darker hours 

I dream of better days in trust. 
But when I reach to pluck the flowers 

Of youth, they turn to senseless dust! 

New England! on thy glorious hills 
I stand in thought, a moment free; 

I hear the music of thy rills, — 
Nature's low notes of liberty! 

The winds are breathing in the pines. 
The thrushes call from tree to tree, 

And one dear voice, where love reclines, 
Is softly calling — calling me. 

But ah! the witching vision flies. 
And truth is not the thing it seems; 

How quickly fades the light that lies 
Along the splendid hills in dreams! 

And hark! I hear the sails astir. 

The stranger hills are calling me; 
And all my sensuous dreams of her 

Grow misty like this dreamy sea. 



42 Songs from the Granite Hills 

But love that travels long and far 
Will reach the homeland shore at last, 

And love that climbs from earth to star 
Will find its own and hold it fast. 



So ends my tale, with hearts dissevered wide: 
One 'midst green valleys of the rock and line, 
Surrounded by the mighty hills, that lift 
Their heads majestic to the face of Heaven, 
Shoulder the dark gray summer mists, and wear 
The shining clouds like mantles of the gods; 
And one, a wanderer by far-off seas, 
'Mid flowery vales and palm groves of the South. 

They fared together for a little space 

In life's short circuit to the couchant grave; 

They plighted faith, with pledges each to each, 

And vows of mutual love; then at the beck 

Of hateful circumstances which men call fate 

They parted, as a dam-obstructed rill. 

On some far hilltop brooding in the rain, 

Divides its silver stream. One to warm seas 

By happy rivers laughing in the sun. 

One to dark forests and the pools that sleep 

In silent glens. 

God is their Judge, not I. 
If I could judge them I could also blot 
That which is written on the face of time. 
That God is God forever, and the Judge; 
That justice will not die, or promise fail. 
While stand the hills or roll the heavenly spheres ! 



The Days of Long Ago 43 

What man, presumptuous and over-bold, 
Essays to judge the human heart, or weigh 
Its impulse or its motive in a scale. 
When no man knoweth wisdom, what it is ? 
Or say, Thou fool? or moralize, or preach? 
O, who shall lay his fingers on its keys 
That tremble with a thousand passions wild. 
Which grew from others' planting, and declare 
Its music, tested by a human scale, 
Breathes not in harmony with nature's law, 
But the kind Maker of the instrument, 
Who, knowing all, is merciful and just? 

And here I leave my friend; but in my heart, 

I hold his memory green ; and all his thoughts 

I cherish as a string of precious pearls 

Which I have counted many, many times 

With tenderness and love. And ere I die, 

I'll take him by the hand — read in his face 

The record written by the stormy years. 

And hear his words anew. These I will plant 

In sacred gardens of my memory. 

By that green spot where lie the flowers of youth. 

O Memory, companion of my soul. 

Unchanging in thy fealty as a star. 

Keep thou the charge I give! Thou art my love, 

Thy gentle voice is ever at my ear. 

Now glad with joy, recalling happy days. 

Now, like a 'wildered thing uncomforted. 

With reminiscent sorrow sad and low. 

Holding my gathered harvest, scant and poor, 

Dead faces and dear voices that are gone. 



44 Songs from the Granite Hills 

With youth's long dream and love's delicious tears, 

Thou standest by me with thy calm, still face, 

Morning and evening, and thy hands are filled 

With relics of the past, and give me back 

The gems I had forgotten or mislaid, — 

The dear forget-me-nots of other days. 

Reproach and benediction on thy lips 

Like gall and wine are mixed: anon thou art 

A nemesis with cold and steady eyes 

Burning in silent scorn. The mask falls off, 

Thou seemest like a fair and patient nun, 

Counting a rosary of dew-kissed buds 

With earnest face and moving lips of prayer, 

And then a halo gathers round thy brow, 

A loveliness and beauty not of earth. 

And thou art standing by yon grassy slope 

Counting the flower-decked graves that peaceful lie 

As couchant lambs. And flowers are in thy hands. 

Ah, sweet and still! These be the flowers that 

grew 
In other years and gardens gone to waste; 
Withered and dead, but to my dreaming soul 
They yet are fragrant with a buried June, 
And speak to chill December of the days 
That will return no more. 

I think when Sleep, the merciful, 

Is bending over me. 

With magic in her touch to dull 

All aches of memory. 

If I should wake in Morning Lands 

To greet the friends I knew. 

And clasp again their loving hands 

To say no more, adieu, — 



The Days of Long Ago 45 

And one should ask: "Dost love me yet 

As once on time's far shore? 
Shall we, forgetting earth, forget, 

Love lives f orevermore ?" 
My eager soul would fly to meet 

The angel of my dreams 
And she should lead my way-worn feet 

By Heaven's delightful streams. 



A BATTLE CALL. 1862 

March! March! There is trouble! 

Ye sons of the North ! 
The blast of the bugle 

Is calling you forth! 
Lest Fatherland perish 

In Liberty's throes, 
For sons it would cherish 

Are traitors and foes! 

March! Freedom is waking 

The sons of the brave 
To fight while she's breaking 

The chains of the slave! 
To fight for the gory 

Stained hope of the world, 
The fore-flame of glory 

Our fathers unfurled! 

March! where the blade shivers, 

Brave sons of the free! 
Go as your wild rivers 

Leap down to the sea! 
Where Tyranny gathers 

Its hosts for the fight, 
Strike! Strike like your fathers, 

And God speed the right! 

March! What is freedom worth 

If your hearts quail? 
Where is the hope of earth 

If your cause fail? 
Go, ask the slave to tell — 

Bleeding and sore! 
Go, ask the dead that fell 

On red fields of gore! 
46 



A Battle Call 47 



March! With the Starry Flag, 

The red flame of war! 
Down with the Slavers' rag 

On Liberty's shore! 
Strike till the bond is free 

And his chains sever! 
Strike for Humanity 

And Union forever! 



FREDERICKSBURG 

The conflict ceases! Traitors, wave 
Your skull and cross-bones flag of Hell, 

Above this graveyard of the brave 

Where Freedom tripped and heroes fell ! 

Let Slavery exult awhile 

And shake its reeking chains unriven ; 
God pours upon its burning pile 

The blood of men, the wrath of Heaven ! 

And Freedom ever wins the fight. 
However hard, however long, 

And Justice's mailed hand will smite 
The crest that's panoplied with wrong. 

There yet are patriots in this land, 
The grandsons of old Lexington, — 

From Maine unto the Golden Strand, 
In wrath, their heart-throbs beat as one ! 

The plow shall rust in fallow field, 
The hammer on the anvil lie; 

And farm and shop and mart will yield 
True men to fight, brave men to die! 

From mountains of the snows they come, 
From cities by the river's mouth, 

With bugle blast and rolling drum, 
And gleaming rifles pointing south! 
48 



Fredericksburg 49 



A mighty nation sends them forth, 

The Paladins of Liberty; 
And black or white, or South or North, 

Men shall be free ! Men shall be free ! 

Their slogan on the northwind's breath 
Is loud with vengeance! Hark, their cry, 

Stern as the fiat of grim Death 
"One flag, one law, one destiny!" 



NOON BY LAKE SUNAPEE 

'Neath groves of maple and the tall plumed pine 
By Sunapee's fair shore we linger long, 
The low waves shimmer in the noonday shine 
And on the shingle lip a plaintive song. 
About their nests the crooning robins throng 
In leafy coverts under branches cool; 
The plodding farmer, waiting for the gong. 
Bathes his swart forehead in the shaded pool; 
Fair as the blue depths of the quiet sky 
The glistening waters spread before the eye, 
While small white clouds, slow sailing from the 

west, 
Are mirrored in their bosom lovingly, 
Below where new-born lilies lie at rest 
Like affluent pearls on some fair lady's breast. 

loveliest day the summer brings to me 
With dreamy air delicious as old wine, 

1 hear the cricket and the droning bee. 
And on far hills the peaceful low of kine. 
Hark! the partridge, the impetuous drummer, 
Thrumming his love call in the dim old wood. 
Ruffling the stillness of its solitude! 

The meadow lark, low in the scented clover. 
Holds converse with the matron of his brood ; 
Over long fields, the gray disporting plover 
Bends piping to the ground, an arc of song; 
The crow upon the mountain calleth long. 
Or watcheth, from his signal perch forlorn. 
His consort pilfering the planted corn. 
50 



Noon by Lake Sunapee 5' 

Oh, how delightful is the mountain air 

Cooled on thy crested water, Sunapee! 

We wonder if Lake Leman is more fair, 

More sweet the gales of storied Araby. 

We breathe the breath of lilies and the balm 

Of woods forever green, while from the calm, 

Like sounds of far-off voices drawing near, 

The coming of the summer wind we hear 

In the long branches rising like a psalm 

Of peace upon thy shore; more sweet, more clear 

Than song of angels to the morning star, 

When, from the rifted darkness of old time, 

Kearsarge and Sunapee arose sublime 

To watch thy face forever, from afar. 



THE BUILDERS 



A simple life is a continuous prayer, 
And love makes holy whatsoever place; 
Good deeds, like angels pleading unaware, 
Call sweet compassion from the Throne of Grace ; 
And all are building, while the swift years roll, 
Mansions to rest in for the weary soul. 



II 



As rivers, running to an unknown deep. 
Sing ever of the green hills and the sod. 
So they plead on, even while our senses sleep, 
And murmur at the listening ear of God 
Perpetual prayer, uplifting to the skies 
The heart's desire, in love's low litanies! 



Ill 



Then build, O soul, your mansions while ye 

may,— 
Not airy visions dreamers build in Spain 
That wane to ruin and so fade away, 
Not on the shore where angry seas complain 
And fret the shifting sands, and topple low 
That which is built for worldly pomp and show. 
52 



The Builders 53 



IV 



But on the rock of Honor, day by day, 
With good deeds build it to the vaulted skies ; 
With pure thoughts garnish all its rooms of clay 
And make it clean within, and fit to rise 
Above the wrecks of time ; then steadfast, pure, 
The storm wrack and the floods it will endure. 



THE PLAINT OF THE PESSIMIST 

Where farest thou, unfettered soul, 
Alone, unhoused, in space forlorn? 

To Lethe's stream and Sleep's control 

Or some fair Dreamland bright with morn? 

O question vain! When thou art free 

No mortal call can summon thee. 

No voice from the unholy earth 

Can reach thy place w^here'er it be, 

Nor being of immortal birth 

Bear love's fond message back to me! 

Betwixt me and thy vantage-ground 

Is neither human sight nor sound! 

Out of the dark a helpless cry — 

Into the dark the shadows flit; 
This is the sum of certainty 

On learning's blazoned pages writ; 
And God forever holds the key 
To life's unriddled mystery. 

We trace the stars in orbits wide. 
The paths celestial systems run, 

In prisms of crystal rock divide 
The golden lances of the sun. 

But Death's stern secret still is hid 

Beneath the dreadful coffin lid. 

We search the heavens to find out God, 

The cosmic mists to find out man; — 
The daisies, springing from the sod, 
54 



The Plaint of the Pessimist 55 

The stars in God's eternal plan 
Baffle alike the toilsome quest 
And spurn the longing of the breast. 

Sphinx-like, the mountain's face of stone 
Stares on forever, still as sleep! 

Immortal stoic, mute, alone, 
Majestic as the awful deep, 

It will not answer when we cry, 

It will not notice when we die! 



So dumb the earth, so deep the skies! 

So vain this eager, human cry! 
The mole that in his burrow dies 

Is wise as our philosophy, 
Except from some high world, a gleam 
Breaks on the darkness of our dream. 



Unstayed the wheels of time go round, 
In serried files the cycles march — 

No certain truth but death is found 
Beneath the heavens' far-bending arch; 

No victor wears a crown of bay 

Unchallenged till the Judgment Day! 

And yet, this man that's born to die 
And be companion with the clod, 

Is also born with wings to fly 

And longings for the things of God! 

With brain to fathom nature's laws 

And from effect divine the cause. 



56 Songs from the Granite Hills 

He binds the thunderbolts of Jove, 
Giants that toil in voiceless pain; 

Neptune, with whom the Ancients strove, 
Gives him the lordship of the Main! 

False gods before his face have fled, — 

His heel is on the Dragon's head! 

But, though he stays the hurricane 
And binds the cyclone to his cars, 

And with the marvel of his brain 
Unfolds the secrets of the stars, 

The secret of his living breath 

Is locked in the closed hand of Death! 

No matter what we search or know, 
Or what attained summits teach — 

Beyond us ever lies the glow 

Of suns and systems out of reach! 

Orion and his glittering train 

Sweep but the verge of God's domain! 

The source is higher than the stream. 
And God is greater still than we. 

We only stand at gaze in dream 
Upon the inargent of the sea, — 

And watch our freighted galleons tryst 

With Death in the eternal mist. 



THE STAR OF THE OPTIMIST 

Not what we would He giveth us, 
We cannot wield His fire or sword, 

Nor grasp His mighty plans, and thus 
Make ours the glory of the Lord! 

But all we need is ours by grace 

Until we meet Him face to face. 

Above the plains of Bethlehem 
He set His signal Star of Peace, 

The splendor of Night's diadem 

Whose omen bright will never cease, 

For Christ, the Lord of Life, was born 

Beneath that herald Star of Morn. 

He walks the ages dark with death — 
With murder, lust, and hellish greed, 

With love unmeasured pitieth 
The sons of men in sorest need. 

And lets His dear compassion fall, 

Like Heaven's sweet rain, upon us all. 

We cannot see His bleeding hands 

Nor touch His pregnant wounds again; 

But we can see the glorious lands 

Made great by what He taught to men ; 

The light nor Rome nor Athens saw, 

Freedom, religion, order, law. 

The stars which led the Magi's feet 

Swings low its beauteous flame no more, 
No more Angelic Choirs repeat 
57 



58 Songs from the Granite Hills 

Heaven's Peace-Song on Judea's shore; 
But Faith, in Love's high realm afar, 
Still hears that Song, — still sees that Star! 

O fairest star in all the skies, 
O guidon that God halloweth. 

Men turn to thee with longing eyes 
Bewildered in the vales of death, 

And catch far gleams of heavenly hope 

For eyes that fail, for hands that grope. 

And Thou, who art the Lord of Light, 
Lord of the star that hailed Thy birth, 

Who saw from Calvary's tragic height 
The long, sad travail of the earth. 

Touch our blind eyes that we may see 

The Zenith Star of Liberty! 



THE VOICE OF LOVE DIVINE 

I said upon the glad new year, 

"O soul self-willed, 
To that far height of vision clear, 
From which immortal shores appear, 

How canst thou build? 

**How best a victor, canst thou rise 

O'er death and time? 
Above thee hang the crystal skies. 
But mists of earth are in thine eyes. 

Thy robes are grime!" 

My soul, confounded, vaguely knew, 

But looked above, 
As one who, listening, catches, through 
Dim vistas of the ether blue. 

Far songs of love ! 

soul it was an idle quest — 
We must look higher! 

What knowest thou of God's behest 
Except love kindle in thy breast 
His own pure fire? 

Then — Angel of the heavenly light, 
O Love Divine! 

1 cried — as one lost in the night. 
Where stand the hills of promise bright, 

Fair hills of thine? 

Love answered like a singing bird 
Whose voice I knew; 

59 



6o Songs from the Granite Hills 

And something in my heart was stirred 
Responsive to that tender word 
That thrilled me through? 

"Go, make some darkened pathway plain, 

Some lorn soul please; 
Soothe with soft hands the brow of pain, 
Lead some lost brother home again, 

Some heartache ease. 

"So shall thy feet that often stray 

Where false lures be. 
Climb, step by step and day by day. 
The heights where angels lead the way, 

Or wait for thee. 

"For love the light of love will find. 

Albeit dim; 
God counts the love that helps mankind. 
However weak and poor and blind. 

As love for Him." 

The new year groweth old and chill. 

The dead leaves fall! 
Wild winds are on the barren hill. 
But faith and hope are living still, 

Surviving all! 

And in my heart I seem to hear 

That voice of old, 
Still calling from the heights so clear, 
While death and winter draweth near, 

And life grows cold. 



The Voice of Love Divine 6 1 

Fair hope! Where roll the mighty spheres 

Lies thy bright dream! 
Thy plummet, dropping down the years, 
Beyond the darkness and the tears, 

Finds love supreme! 

For no high soul hath loved in vain 

What God loves most! 
No tear that fell on error's stain, 
No tribute on love's altar lain 

Was ever lost! 

And He, who notes the sparrow's fall 

And weighs the dust, — 
Who holds within control and call 
The suns and systems, each and all, 

Is One to trust. 

So, when at the far gates I pine, 

Ashamed with sin. 
And feel how poor this love of mine, 
Be near, O gracious Love Divine, 

And call me in. 



A TRYST 

It is over, and done. 

We meet no more upon the hoary earth ; 
Thy new life is begun, 

Thy face is to the morning, thy new birth 
Beyond the rising of the sun. 

To thee, the glorious morn 

Will never wear to noon, to wane or eve, 
And bitterness and scorn 

Will never more thy gentle spirit grieve, 
Or make thy life forlorn. 

So, when the flying years 

Shall o'er my head their shifting pageant roll 
Of joy and strife and fears, 

I'll find thy place of rest, O whitest soul, 
Made pure by grief and tears! 

And if my mortal sin 

Shall lift its front before me, or shall bar 
The goal that I would win. 

May thy pure spirit call, through gates ajar, 
Me, even me, within. 

Then bide a tryst for me, 

By silver stream or garden of delight. 
In realm of constancy — 

Out of the glooms of earth, through the dark 
night, 
I bend my steps to thee. 

62 



NEW ENGLAND 

Hail, birthplace of that glorious Liberty 

That broke the shackles from the bleeding slave! 

Hail to th}^ mountains set above the sea, 

Lone w^atchers o'er thy sons and daughters brave ! 

The wide world knows thy record in the past, 
Thy steadfast purpose that no threats could awe; 

It saw thy brave opinions rise at last, 
Firm set on truth, and broaden into law. 

On thy green hills our country's lyre was strung 
To notes exultant by the master hand ; 

By thy blest firesides were the lyrics sung 

That stirred the pulse of freedom in the land ! 

Justice and Order here made their abode — 
Here lit their altars with celestial flame ; 

And the eternal Providence of God 

Has multiplied the honors of thy name! 

And far and wide thy spirit treads the earth. 
And mailed Oppression hath its slogan heard — 

The patient slave, by many a fireless hearth. 

Nerves his right arm ! Hope kindles at thy word ! 

And, in a dream, I see the future rise, 
And Liberty's colossal Genius stands 

Upon thy mountains that divide the skies, 
Proclaiming freedom unto all the lands ! 
63 



64 Songs from the Granite Hills 

And while upon thy lofty summits rest 

The golden sunlight and the summer cloud, 

Men shall be nourished on thy rugged breast, 
Who dare to think, and thinking, speak aloud, — 

Men who can hew the sturdy forests down 
And do stern battle with thy glebe and rock! 

Men who will build for peace, but if War frown, 
Stand like thy hills when comes the fiery shock! 

Go on, my country: the applauding ages 

Shall praise the deeds of thine immortal youth, 

And History's muse upon yet virgin pages 

Shall trace thy progress to the heights of Truth. 

Whence thou shalt see the glorious age begin. 
When Greed shall fail, and grim Oppression 
cease ; 

And nations shall conspire to usher in 

The years of God, the "thousand years of Peace." 



OUR ANGELS 

We love to think they linger with us still; 

That when our souls are full of longings deep, 
They come about us at their own sweet will 

And steal into our being, soft as sleep. 

Shall they not come, the darling friends of ours, 
Who gave us love for love in measure true, — 

To deck whose graves the Morning gives her 
flowers. 
And Night the benediction of her dew? 

We long have kept the chambers of our hearts 
Garnished and swept with sacred care for them. 

And memory hoards, as year by year departs. 
Their love and friendship as a precious gem. 

We may not see them with our mortal vision^ 
Nor hear the music they have just begun; 

Still they may come to speak of fields Elysian, 
Or guide us to them when our work is done. 

Spirits intangible — we know they come! 

When our life tumults for a moment cease ; 
They speak to us, although their lips are dumb, 

And the great silence has a cry of peace. 

O, tender as the words of Christ that float. 
Full argosies of love, on time's wide sea, — 

More musical than Israfili's note, 

More loving than a mother's lullaby, — 
65 



66 Songs from the Granite Hills 

More beautiful than any face or form, 

Dearer than fame or love's divine behest, — 

Sweeter than sunshine after days of storm, — 
Are their still voices from a land of rest. 

These are our angels, — flesh and blood no more, 
As ere we laid them in our kindred earth ; 

And yet our souls may reach them, gone before, 
And gather strength from beings of new birth. 

These are our angels, for love cannot die. 
Nor yet in Heaven its tender lips be dumb, — 

Our heralds, who will watch, and fondly cry 

In the great Presence, "Lo, our friends, they 
come !" 



CROSSES 

Weep not for those who leave us here, forlorn, 

Mid gardens sere and brown; 
They, at the gateway of the splendid morn, 

Have laid their crosses down. 

But we, who linger by their earthly places, 

Where yet are pain and tears. 
Must lift our crosses up, and turn our faces 

Toward immortal years. 

This world is full of fondest dreams that perish, 

Of hopes that die in pain! 
There is a cross in everything we cherish, 

For pleasure or for gain. 

Friendship and love are beautiful in season, 

But soon we mourn their loss. 
And cannot tell, by any human reason. 

Why each should have its cross. 

The cross of Friendship is a bitter thing. 

When trusted friends go wrong; 
The cross of love — it has a sharper sting. 

With pain that rankles long! 

Now, let us bravely lift each cross of sorrow 
And wreathe its thorns with flowers, 

We cannot wait upon a dim to-morrow 
When only now is ours. 

To-day is ours to live in, not to plod — 

To-day we have our breath; 
To-morrow's future, and belongs to God, 

And may belong to Death. 
67 



FOR DON,— MY DOG 

Where loving hands have made thy grave 
Sweet be thy slumber and thy sleep; 

Above thee let the wild flow^ers wave 
And soft the tender raindrops weep. 

In tears I bid a long adieu, 

Dear comrade of my lonely days ; 

Thine was the whitest soul I knew 
Along life's common beaten ways. 

And you were more to me than men 
Who in the limelight pray for grace, 

But stab in secret, and again 

Walk heavenward with averted face. 

Men waver, falter, cheat and lie. 
But thou did'st never fail a friend; 

Men fail when fortune passes by 
But you were faithful to the end. 

Wise Pagans did of old predict 

Our dogs to Heaven would follow us, 

And Jesus loved the dogs that licked 
The bleeding sores of Lazarus. 

If love is God then love will live, 

If God is love it cannot die, 
But, passing on, will wait to give 

Itself again with joyous cry, 
68 



For Don, — My Dog 69 

When we, who on life's drifting sand 

Wait calmly for the final pause, 
Shall reach the unencumbered land 

Where all love is that ever was. 

O friends beyond! Advanced, not lost, 
With joy enlarging more and more; 

And one, because he loved me most, 
Will greet me first on that glad, shore. 

Still, something would our pleasure mar, 

A sense of justice unfulfilled, 
Else we beheld from that fair star 

The star where heedless fools are grilled! 

Where Satan guards the realm of Fate 

And sets his fearful grids a-row 
We might complacent view his state 

Who struck for thee the fatal blow. 

Aye, where Hell's ceaseless cycles roll. 
And pain no respite hath of night, 

Nor day, for a beleagured soul 
To mark the stages of its flight! 

Beyond the pale of hope or grace 

Cries for the beggar's touch were vain; 

No dog could cross that awful space 
To lick the twinges of his pain. 



A FAREWELL TO JOE ENGLISH 

Hail and farewell! At last it must be said, 
Dear mountain of my fondest memories; 
Peace to thy paths my feet no more will tread 
When morning smiles, or when the daylight dies 
And the low sun makes splendor on the skies. 

This day is all too sad ! a time for tears, 

The silent emblems of a grieving soul, 

To tremble on my lids! O, happy years 

I leave behind me, mount o'er whom doth roll 

The angry clouds — the Storm King's ebon scroll! 

My sires have dwelt beneath thy brow long years; 
Thou wert to them a friend both true and fast; 
Thy paths have known their feet, thy shade their 

tears. 
Through the dim seasons of the silent past; 
And still to me a friend, first, always, last. 

When, with a smile, the dappled Morning flung 
Her sun-bright glances on thy glowing crest. 
Entranced, I listened to the Druid tongue 
Of nature's friendship, and thy sylvan breast 
Became a temple, fit for prayer or rest. 

When, like a disc of burnished brass, the sun 
Swung low in heaven against the mottled sky, 
I watched the shadows climbing, one by one. 
Among thy centuried oaks, that silently 
Grieved in their hearts to see the daylight die. 
70 



A Farewell to Joe English 71 

Beneath thy shadow grew an artless maid, 

A daughter of the breezes and the sun ; 

Life bounded with her pulses, — light and shade 

Made riot on her face. — Alas, for one 

So young, so fair, by murderous hand undone. 

To our blind senses it is strange indeed! 
The fairest flowers are first of beauty shorn; 
The loved of all, from hearts that break and bleed, 
In life's fair morning seem so rudely torn. 
While those are left, for whom we could not mourn. 

'Twas at thy foot the fair Sevilla fell 
A mad love's sacrifice. The virgin snow 
Drank her life blood, with his, the son of Hell, 
Whose deed on earth made all the fiends below 
Chagrined with shame, a viler wretch to know! 

He sleeps to-day within a culprit's grave. 
Unmarked, unknown, a curse upon his name! 
O deep Oblivion, let thy silent wave 
Blot out forever his unholy fame. 
The coward, the assassin, and his shame! 

But she will live, returning after death 

With the cool May-flower and its lowly brood — 

With Spring's sweet voice and Summer's ardent 

breath 
To linger lightly in thy still green wood, 
The Priestess of thy sylvan solitude ! 

Reclining here beneath this giant oak. 
Where sat the dusky maid of other years. 



72 Songs from the Granite Hills 

I hear the silence by her whispers broke, 

As that still voice the spirit only hears 

Breaks on the soul and melts the heart to tears. 

And where within thy leafy recess lingers 

The wood-lark's song, the brown bee's drowsy hum, 

The wild rose bloom will lightly kiss thy fingers — 

At thy sweet will the Elfin troops will come 

To this, thy shrine, in adoration dumb! 

And legends old are floating through my brain. 
Things of the past, surviving change and chance; 
I see Joe English, in his plumes again, 
March down the war-trail of his weird romance — 
The painted savage and the wild war-dance! 

Now the red warriors glut their frenzied ire! 
The Indian war-cry, with its dread alarms, 
Speaks far and wide of tomahawk and fire; 
By burning cabins hear the clash of arms — 
The wail of death about the lonely farms! 

When Liberty, from out her dungeon barred, 
Sent her faint cheer for freedom's battle won, 
The tyrant-loving Tories basely marred 
Thy fair traditions; and from thy crest of stone. 
Hurled down, in effigy, great Washington! 

Let fame give them no largess, but the scorn 
Of freemen's sons through ages yet to be! 
The craven enemies of men unborn 
Were these king-fawners, scorning to be free, 
When heroes lit the torch of Liberty! " 



A Farewell to Joe English 73 

The Arnolds of Perdition, damned to fame! 
Most grievous blot on thy tradition fair! 
Let Lucifer in Hell forbear to name 
So black a deed! May Pity never dare 
Assuage their long repentance and despair! 

But all is changed save thy unchanging form ; 

The conflict's diapason sounds no more, 

And naught disturbs thy silence but the storm 

That thunders on thy bosom as of yore. 

Nor calls Joe English from the spectral shore. 

And since those days the fleeting years of time 
Have borne into the past these visions gory; 
And standing here, upon the verge sublime 
Of two eternities, I see thy story — 
Thy legends and traditions growing hoary. 

And now that changeless Fate, with stern decree, 
Calls me 'mid other lands and scenes to roam, 
Far from the friends I ever loved, and thee, 

mountain ! that, beside my early home, 
Liftest thy head up to the welkin dome, 

1 say farewell ! Then why do I stand here. 
And cavil at the things I cannot change? 

I will resign myself unto my sphere 

And murmur not, though long and far I range. 

Making new friends where all is new and strange'. 

Friend of my youth, farewell! my dream is o'er; 
O, come! thou spirit that enchantment lends, 
Give me thy benediction, ere once more 



74 Songs from the Granite Hills 

I go to other mountains, other friends, 

But none like thee, till life or memory ends! 

And I will not forget the long, long days 

I've whiled away beneath thy oaken shade, 

Or strolled about thy pleasant woodland ways, 

Reading, in covert nook or sunny glade, 

Kind Nature's thoughts in rock and leaf and blade. 

And in the coming years, when far away, 
My bark is tossed upon life's troubled stream, 
My thoughts shall turn, O mountain old and gray, 
Back unto thee, my boyhood's early theme, 
Thou glorious pile, that meet'st the sun's first beam ! 

And I shall see, as I behold it now. 
The golden sunlight falling on thy face. 
Or fair cloud draperies hung aloft thy brow 
Encircling thee with forms of airy grace, — 
Then shall my heart yearn to this holy place. 



ANABEL 



In the valley of the roses 

There I met sweet Anabel, 
When she walked in summer closes 

And the paths of asphodel; 
And her smile was like the vision 

Saints have caught in golden gleams 
From the fairy fields elysian 

In the happy land of dreams. 

The lilies laughed that one so sweet 

Should walk in their cool places, 
The daisies smiling at her feet 

Turned to her face their faces; 
The swallows darted east and west 

On joyous wings to meet her, 
The veery from its secret nest 

Came forth with song to greet her. 

Small wonder, then, should Eros find 

A fere in this green valley ; 
When loveliness is also kind 

Love to its arms will rally; 
The wonder is that one so fair 

Both rose and bird adore her, 
Should smile at me who must forbear 

To lay my heart before her. 

75 



76 Songs from the Granite Hills 



II 



Fairest flower in all the valley 

Where our shining river flows, 
I have searched the pleasant marges 

For the largess of the rose; 
And here's a wild rose fair for your hair, 

Silver-laughing Anabel, 
Pink and red, it is a part of my heart 

And the love it may not tell. 



In the years that lie before thee 

Like this river long and fair, 
Lover leal, I may adore thee — 

If thy love I may not share. 
And thou'lt never, nay, forever, 

Dainty darling Anabel, 
Find a better love to fetter 

With the magic of thy spell. 



But our names are not together 

Written on the roll of Fate; 
Rarely bird of ebon feather 

With the gentle dove did mate; 
So in sadness, born of gladness 

Of love's dreaming, Anabel, 
I will take it, ere thou break it. 

Luckless heart! and fare thee well. 



A nab el ^*] 



III 



In the valley of the roses 

There is blush and bloom to spare, 
In the fragrant summer closes 

Walks a saint with silver hair, 
And if haply she is dreaming 

Of the olden, golden years, 
I can feel the smile that's beaming 

In the vision of her tears. 



TO SUSIE 

If thou couldst look, beloved soul, 

From thy high world to this, 
Across the shadowy seas that roll 

Between us and thy bliss, — 
If thou couldst see each dear loved face 

Whose lips have kissed the rod, 
And feel how lonely is the place 
Where thy dear feet have trod : — 

Then pain would touch thy tender heart. 

And tears suffuse thine eyes, 
And sorrow have a place and part 
In God's own Paradise! 
No, no, — thine eyes of heavenly birth 

Are blind to what we see; — 
We would not drag thee down to earth, 
But rise, bright soul, to thee ! 



78 



THE LIGHT MEN USE 

To those who use the precious light from Heaven, 

That, in some measure, comes to every soul, 
More light, more knowledge, wider views are given 

Until the future, like an open scroll, 
Reveals its secrets in the steady glare 

Of spiritual light, till mortal eyes 
Behold the Hills of Promise standing fair 

In summer lands and under radiant skies. 

More knowledge is foreknowledge to some men 

Who use it wisely, ever reaching higher 
The rugged steeps, whence broaden to their ken 

The full fruition of the soul's desire. 
So men become as angels, standing square 

Upon the heights that overlook the world — 
Below, the darkened valleys — above them fair 

Are truth's white banners to the winds unfurled. 

There is no need that man should be a clod. 

Senseless and blind — a brute amidst the flowers — 
For, in all ages, men have climbed to God 

Through perilous ways by dimmer light than 
ours. 
Therefore, lead on, lead on, O Light Divine, 

Until our feet shall touch the gleaming spheres, 
Where faces of the dead in beauty shine. 

And Heaven's beatitude enshrines our tears. 
79 



8o Songs from the Granite Hills 

Then shall this old world, reeling onward, seem 

But as a bivouac in the battle march 
Where we have watched a night and dreamed a 
dream. 

And left it, swinging 'neath the starry arch, 
To seek the land we dreamed of, and to be 

With those we loved aforetime, gone before, — 
To breathe the essence of true liberty 

Where knowledge grows and broadens evermore. 



A REVERIE 

The bloom is on the apple tree, 

The fields are specked with gold, 
And I will walk in dreams with thee, 

Thou dearest friend of old; 
And years, too full of joy to last, 

Shall pass me, one by one. 
The tender footfalls of the past, 

A moment heard — and gone. 

And stay thy flight, delightful dreams, 

I would not know the truth ; 
I'll walk with thee again what seems 

The glorious hills of youth ; 
And by a far, far window-tree 

Beneath the Summer sky, 
A tender voice shall speak to me 

Of love that cannot die. 

Of love that cannot die? Alas! 

It lives in dreams alone; 
The swallow and the rose will pass. 

But not the senseless stone! 
And I shall see thy smiling face 

No more — no more thy tears — 
Nor yet the semblance of thy grace 

Beyond the flying years. 

Then walk with me in dreams where stand 

The sun-clad hills of old; 
'Tis something worth to touch Love's hand, 
8i 



82 Songs from the Granite Hills 

Albeit dead and cold! 
To greet thy face is something worth 

Although in dreams it be, 
Since we shall never meet on earth, 

Nor greet on Time's wide sea. 



THE SWEETEST WORD 

Like rain upon the thirsting flower, 

Whose leaves are pinched and dry, 
That many a long and weary hour 

Hath prayed upon the sky, — 
Hath prayed with pleading face at morn. 

At noon with lifted eye, 
Hath bent, ere night, its head forlorn 

On desert sands to die; 

So come the tender words to me, 

"I will forgive — forget!" 
Sweet are all words of charity, 

But these are sweetest yet. 
O blessed words! Long may they be 

To love's grand music set! 
One is a voice from Galilee, 

And one from Olivet. 



83 



A PLEA FOR A HEART 

Give back thy heart to me ! 
The years are shod with silence and they fly — 
Our days will soon be overcast, and I 

Would comfort thee. 

To me why art thou dumb, 
Remembering not the joys of other years, 
Or that within the grave no sighs or tears 

Or love can come? 

The night is overheard; 
It darkens on the confines of the day, 
And when it falls, beneath the sodden clay 

I shall be dead. 

If you should love me then. 
And call my name with piteous moan and sigh, 
From the great space of peace I could not cry, 

Or love again! 

For on that silent shore 
To which our steps are bending, day by day, 
All earthly loves and dreams are cast away 

For evermore. 

And if too late, too late, 
Relenting, you forgive the bitter word. 
Your voice will be a music all unheard, 

A wail of fate! 

84 



A Plea for a Heart 85 

For then how poor, how vain, 
Were tender words, or tears, or deep regret 
To one in death's long sleep, where men forget 

Pleasure and pain! 

Give back thy heart, my love. 
The Ark still floats upon the perilous sea, 
The windows of my soul are wide to thee. 

Wing-weary dove ! 



SONNETS 

I 
In far-off steeples chime the vesper bells, 
Calling to prayer! Full sweet their music swells, 
Voicing for me loved melodies of yore, 
And life's first beautiful and bygone dream, — 
Breathing of lips that I shall press no more. 
Of friends that perished on the shore where roll 
The waves of Lethe's dark and silent stream, 
Of speaking eyes that looked into my soul 
And closed their lids forever! — parting tears. 
And words that sound across the gulf of years! 
Speak on, O vesper bells, with voices sweet! 
Soothe with soft tones the wearied brain of care, 
Call back the vanished years, and let them meet 
For dear remembrance at the hour of prayer. 



Brown minstrel of the summer wood, that sings. 
Poised on a spray out-hung in breezes free. 
How sweetly from thy bubbling breast upsprings 
The riot of exultant melody! 
Thy song is of green valleys, mountain walled. 
Of daisy-sprinkled mead and glinting stream; 
Thou art the sweetest voice that ever called 
A mate to tryst, a dreamer from his dream. 
Melodious juggler! How thy wizard tongue 
Outrolls the note of every woodland bird; 
Thy lay, untutored, is as naively sung 
As when in Eden first thy voice was heard — 
And men will listen to thy rapturous glee 
When we are dead, and praise thy minstrelsy. 
86 



Sonnets 87 



III 

If all the wrongs of earth, our low estate, 
In Heaven are righted and all tears dried up. 
If there is broke Fate's poison-tinctured cup 
Which men have drank to the dim brink of death, 
Why should we punish or pursue, or hate 
Foes of a passing hour? Why waste our breath 
In curses more than vain? Have we not heard 
"Vengeance is mine"? O, how that fearful word, 
A naked dagger, through the ages runs 
From Eden unto Judgment! The dark, dead 
Centuries the Dictum heard! and till the suns 
Stand still in Heaven, men shall hear! "Dust to 

dust" 
Is not more true: yet God may we not trust? 
"Mercy is Mine," hath He not also said? 

IV 

How like a flickering candle, burning low, 

And going out in utter nothingness. 

Is this poor life begun in others' woe. 

And quickly ended in its own distress! 

How like a ship upon an angry sea. 

With breakers on the right hand and the left, 

Of chart and compass cruelly bereft. 

And grating on the sharp rocks shudderingly. 

To those who know not, and can never know, 

The luxury of a pilot out of woe! 

Therefore, O come, divinest pilot, Hope, 

With thy beloved sister, gentle Faith, 

And lead us from the wilderness where grope 

The grisly forms of Misery and Death! 



88 Songs from the Granite Hills 



If, after all these disappointing years, 

In some far land we meet, beloved soul. 

Beyond all sorrow and the stern control 

Of change and death, and time, with all its tears, 

Shall we recall the days that are no more. 

When youth, with castles builded fair, was ours? 

And, walking by the far, remembered shore. 

We read the language of the stars and flowers 

In love's delicious dream — its prophecy 

Of hopes full-crowned in golden years to be? — 

To be ? — They are not ! If they ever come. 

The happy years our vision saw arise. 

It will be Heaven indeed ! Ah, doubts, be dumb, — 

And faith, look upward and beyond the skies! 



VI 

How oft we dream of happy fields elysian. 

Fair lands of rest, but know not where they lie; 

We only know they lie beyond our vision 

On some far islands of the boundless sky. 

Then let us make no weak or fretful cry — 

Fate's listless ear was never charmed with moan, 
But simple faith can solve eternity 
And make the fairest land of dreams its own! 
And let the years lead to the shore unknown: 
Stay not their wings that seek the splendid day, 
So they but teach us ere they pass away 
The living truth that work and faith are one. 
And every noble thought a stepping-stone 
Whereon our feet are lifted from the clay. 



Sonnets 89 



VII 



I hear the clock strike, with a solemn dole, 

The hours from time forevermore exempted; 

Sleep flies my pillow, and will not be tempted 

To lay the touch of slumber on my soul! 

I feel a longing, and a loneliness. 

Over my spirit sinuously creep; 

My heart aches, and my sleepless eyes would weep 

If tears availed. Now I would gladly bless 

The day of thy return, O dearest friend! 

The day that brings, with thy soft hand's caress, 

Kisses exuberant in fond excess, 

And all thy wifely graces, charms which lend 

Enchantment to life's plain and common things. 

Making them luxury and fit for kings. 



VIII 

We met as strangers, and we spoke no word, 
Thy face as speechless marble glistening cold. 
Yet in our hearts were greetings as of old, 
Voiceful of tenderness although unheard ! 
For they who once have loved with passion pure, 
Can never all forget the joy love gives ; 
And sleeping in thy breast, it surely lives. 
Though starved and strangled, and will still endure ! 
As embers that have burned and smouldered low. 
Fanned by fresh winds, rekindle to a flame, 
So does the heart with love a moment glow 
At sight of some dear face. It is the same 
Old love that will not die ! Go where we will, 
It goeth with us, and will pain us still ! 



90 Songs from the Granite Hills 



IX 

Lift to my face, dear love, your teary eyes 

With pearly drops so sweetly overrun; 

Blue as the rift in April's changing skies 

Beneath the golden lashes of the sun ! 

Albeit their fringe of weeping is the shade 

Of summer's rose with violet inlaid ! 

I will repent me that a word of mine 

Should ever make thee weep, O fairest one! 

I would do penance to a sainted shrine 

And kiss dry bones, for this which I have donef 

Put gravel in my shoes, and walk alone, 

Far o'er the flinty hills with stifled groan! 

Or, if thou wilt, on suppliant knee, I pray, 

"My darling, let me kiss thy tears away!" 



What art thou. Death, O dread of all mankind, 

Whose noiseless feet, pursuing, never rest, 

Whose ruthless hand doth never cease to bind 

And make its own the truest an*d the best? 

An end to all? The sum of all our years? 

A leap in darkness, an eternal sleep? 

Or is life real? And do we truly live 

For some high purpose which we cannot know 

Except by faith? Doth God a season give 

Each soul in which to choose its way to go? 

To vales of radiant bloom, where are no tears, 

Or to a dismal and unquiet deep? 

And does the spirit, from these bonds of clay, 

Rise at thy touch, and go its chosen way? 



Sonnets 91 



XI 

God careth not for piles of hammered stone, 
Nor circumstance of ceremonious prayer; 
But in the fields and on the mountains lone 
Are temples high as heaven, builded fair. 
Where God forever dwells. His tender voice 
Is in the winds and waters that rejoice. 
And Nature is a preacher everywhere. 
Whose unstained lips a steadfast truth declare. 
O, give me then the mountain and the glen, 
Or stately wood by marge of pleasant stream, 
I would not herd with vain and selfish men 
Whose sanctimonious noise assoils my dream. 
This lichened rock, beneath the old oak tree, 
Is nave and altar good enough for me. 



XII 

Tears fill the measure of our years, never 
Is sorrow absent from the hoary earth ; 
There's no abiding^place for joy or mirth. 
Nor any rest from strife and vain endeavor 
Our friends are passing, one by one, the river, 
Dark, silent, deep, 'twixt seen and unseen lands, 
Whilst we can only lift our helpless hands 
Forlorn, beseeching, to the vast Forever ! 
It may be in the wide, eternal space 
There is a resting-place that human prayer 
Can reach and claim ; — else, in the deepening gloom 
Love, beauty, friendship, gold or lofty place 
Were vain indeed ! But pitfalls set to snare 
Regardless men! Mere gilding of the tomb. 



92 Songs from the Granite Hills 



XIII 

When Satan, from the groaning deeps of Hell, 

Let toothache loose upon the sons of men 

There was rejoicing 'mong the hosts that fell, 

And deathless hope revived the damned again, — 

For they were eased a turn, while man was cursed 

With Lucifer's last agony, — and worst! 

O pain supreme! Thy victims curse and pray 

Alternate, as thy lances rest or play. 

But howl no more, ye fools, nor pray, forsooth, — 

It only lets the cold in on the tooth; 

But when the nerve jumps and you wish to die, 

Just keep your mouth shut with a mental cry, 

And call a dentist quick, and laugh to feel 

The rigid grip of his remorseless steel. 



XIV 

Ah, bitter cold and dreary is the night. 
Closing a day as chill and bitter cold; 
The cattle shiver in the littered^ fold, 
Moaning in misery for the summer plain! 
Wild winds are driving in their headlong flight 
The fierce battalions of the frozen rain! 
Lord pity those, shut out from fireside bliss. 
Homeless and hungry, on a night like this! 
And teach us, by our cheerful fires within, 
To pity too, for all men are our kin — 
And let us pray in deeds for such as these. 
For wishes ease no pain, words dry no tears, 
Thus we may know thy watchful angel sees 
A thousand prayers for every one he hears. 



Sonnets 93 



XV 

When Darkness, like a demon, strode supreme 

O'er country waste and city solitude, 

I heard the cry of want, as in a dream, 

Come to my ear with low, sad interlude 

Of mourning, as some spirit dropped its load. 

Where Poverty and Famine stalk abroad. 

And Vice and Squalor have their mean abode, 

I heard the orphans crying unto God, 

Wide-mouthed, incessant, piteously and rude. 

As young birds cry, whose mother hath been slain ! 

And from a thousand places came the cry, 

A thousand cities echoed on the strain — 

"Hunger and cold! Lord, succor; or we die. 

With wealth and plenty mocking us to pain!" 



XVI 

And then I saw, in stately palaces 

Where mimic suns on lusty beauty shine, 

The glut of gold. And silver chalices. 

Brimming luxurious with beaded wine. 

Greeted to ruin half the sons of pride. 

Steeped to the lips in overbearing wealth! 

Without the gates, the poor and homeless sighed. 

Scarce kept alive with pickings got by stealth. 

In vain the widow for her orphans cried — 

"Bread! bread! For Liberty their father died!'* 

And, while I looked, my soul within grew wiser, 

And loud I cried, with pity in my breath, 

"No more a tyrant, but an equalizer. 

Thou great Agrarian, stern, relentless Death!" 



94 Songs from the Granite Hills 



XVII 

If thou dost look, from thy calm rest in Heaven, 
Back to the scenes of strife, or tears, or mirth; 
If thou dost know, where sins are all forgiven. 
The sin and sorrow of the groaning earth, — 
How must thy heart ache, even where joy has birth, 
And yearn to thy beloved, passion born ! 
No, no, it cannot be! For pain, nor sin, 
Nor sorrow at thy gates shall enter in 
To mar the splendor of eternal morn! — 
Then, we are separate forevermore: 
Thou, 'midst the blooms of Paradise afar. 
With happiness full rounded like a star 
In sphered beauty perfect. I, on the shore 
Of Time's long reaches, utterly forlorn. 



THE TRYST OF THE PILOT 



By marge of the Stygian river 

Deep, still in the valley of mist, 

Dividing to-day and forever 

The Pilot is biding a tryst: 

Biding a tryst with the naked soul 

At the rim of the dreadful night, 

O Pilot, but wait where the dark waves roll 

And the unknown terrors affright! 

II 

While Science that weighed the flying star 
Is dumb with a shivering fear, 
Love never is far from the river's bar 
When a soul that hath loved draws near! 
And gold men hold with a grip that's vain — 
It pays no toll and it buys no breath, 
Nor state nor beauty nor high disdain 
Can stay the swift Angel of Death ! 

Ill 

But one still waits where the shadows fall 
Dark on their way who have loved him long. 
Forsaken, despairing, — ^he hears their call. 
They hear in the valley his love-sweet song; — 
The song of good will at the Manger, 
The song of the Bethlehem Star, — 
O Life, and not Death the Avenger, 
Is Lord at the terrible bar! 
95 



96 Songs from the Granite Hills 



IV 

O Voice of Gethsemane, pleading 

For all generations of men! 

Dear Voice, on fair Olivet reading 

The promise of Eden again! 

At the rim of the night, at the goal — 

The shore of the limitless sea, 

When the cold waves roll over my soul 

Tryst Thou in thy pity with me. 



THE WHITE TICKET 



Men may strive and toil for riches, 

Place or power or lofty name, 

Lift their blazon to the niches 

Of the marble Halls of Fame; 

But when life's brief day is ended and its splendid 

Dreams have faded with its sun, 

Over Charon's dismal ferry they can carry 

But the good deeds they have done, 

But the soul's self abnegation 

And the pardon it has won. 



n 



Let us then make haste in doing, 

For our days like shadows fly; 

Howe'er swift our feet, pursuing 

Death is swifter, and we die! 

"O my brothers!" men are crying, some are dying 

In the clutch of want and shame, — 

With love's guidon we can lead them, we can feed 

them 
With our bounty in Christ's name. 
And our sympathy will kindle 
Hope's dull embers into flame. 

97 



98 Songs from the Granite Hills 



in 

So, when Charon halts his wherry 
Where we wait on drifting sands, 
And we cross the dreadful ferry 
To the dim and mystic lands. 

We can show a clean white ticket at the wicket, 
And we reach the shining gate, — 
And Saint Peter, the grim warder, he will or- 
der, — 
"Open Sesame! They wait!" 
For the watchword of the Master 
Is the arbiter of fate. 



ON THE SHORE 

Over the harbor bar to-day 

Proud ships go out to sea; 
Fair winds upon their canvas play, 
Prayers speed them on their shining way — 

Where may their haven be? 

Where are the ships that sailed the main, 

With wind and waves to sport? 
One trysted with the hurricane, 
The iceberg on the ocean plain. 
One reached a peaceful port! 

Friends looked for their beloved again 

Until their eyes grew dim; 
They scanned the dark blue verge in vain. 
Never the white sails of the slain 

Flecked the horizon's rim. 

Tell me of these, O ruthless sea, 

The tale I fain would hear! 
O winds that wander far and free. 
How fared the ships that sailed with thee 

This many, many a year? 

In vain the homeless winds I hail. 

In vain, the mighty deep ! 
Proud fleets may sink before the gale, 
Great seas may drown the fishers' sail, 

And all their secrets keep. 

99 



lOO Songs from the Granite Hills 

And on a darker shore I stand 

Beside a wider sea; 
My feet are on the shifting sand, 
My friends are passing from the land — 

Where may their haven be? 

O Captain of our destinies! 
O Warden of the soul ! 

Ruler of the gloomy seas, 
Still as the dead eternities. 

Hath man no chart or goal? 

Grim Silence guards the outer bar, 

The lips of Death are sealed ; 
But breaking on the dark, afar 

1 see the glimmer of a star 

By steadfast love revealed. 

Lead Thou me on, O Beacon Light 

Set for the shore unknown; 
About me lie the glooms of night. 
The winds are loud, the waves affright,- 
O Star of Hope, lead on ! 

Then let the dark seas break and roll, 

The winds blow as they will : 
I need not fear the rock or shoal 
If I may hear, within my soul, 
The Master's "Peace, be still!" 



A PLEA FOR LOVE 

My living friends with love I keep, 

My dead by faith I hold ; 
Their words are like the touch of sleep, 
Their thoughts like threads of gold ; 
And these I cherish in my heart, 
And make them of my life a part. 

For what is sweet as constant love, 

Or pure as friendship's tear? 
In all my dreams of Heaven above 
My friends are standing near ; 
And tender words and loving eyes 
Complete the joys of Paradise. 

Then grant me, Heaven, when I am old 

Love still may be the same ; 
Fortune may keep her tinsel gold. 
And fame its sounding name — 
For these must perish utterly. 
But surely love will go with me. 



lOI 



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